kevinayP Blog

Oh hapi⇒, how can I ever repay you by making awesome videos every year? After THE MEDLEY OF KIRBY SSDX, a Kirby song compilation rearranged and remade by hapi⇒, he finally made a new video about a week ago, THE MEDLEY OF POKEMON RGBY+GSC -3PBs-. It's a remix, rearranged version of Pokemon Generation 1 and 2 game songs. It's perfect, one of the best video ever uploaded on Nico Nico Douga. I'm pretty sure most of you doesn't have a Nico Nico Douga account, luckily chronomeister mirrored it to YouTube [First Part | Second Part | Third Part]. It's 26 minutes long and includes 50 remixed Pokemon game songs, with a "To Be Continued" message at the end. Could this imply a THE MEDLEY OF POKEMON RSE+DPP video? I'm really looking forward to whatever you make, hapi⇒. Oh, and the illustration is very cute, too!

There are 3 PSP games I'm really looking forward to in Japan. I bought a PSP-1000 Launch PSP back when I was in Japan for vacation, and I never really used it since then, it was just collecting dust. PSP games just don't appeal me. But now, there are 3 games I really want on the PSP, and seeing how many people said PSP-2000 or PSP-3000 sucks, I'm really glad I bought a launch PSP-1000.

THE iDOLM@STER SPThis was originally an Arcade game, turned into a XBOX360 game (see my review), and now split intothreeversions (they're learning how to make profit from Pokemon games!) into the PSP. It's a simulation game, where you'll become a Producer and manage a girl to become a top idol. Manage lessons, communicate with her (like in Visual Novels), and get into Online (on the XBOX360, at least) auditions, and just try your best to turn your girl into a S-rank idol. I'm so getting THE iDOLM@STER SP: Perfect Sun for Ami and Mami, they're my favorite character in the game plus their voice actress is one of my favorite voice actress of all times.

Hatsune Miku -Project DIVA-As I said in my previous post, Hatsune Miku is a voice synthetizer program. SEGA picked her up and decided to make a rhythm game (since she's so popular and all in Japan). After seeing the trailer and the demo, I really wanted to play it. It's one of the best rhythm games I've ever seen. Plus I love all the songs that are featured in this game (such as this one), so I'm definitely pre-ordering it, no matter what.

Pangya!I'm now playing this game, the Korean version. I'm just waiting for the Japanese version (or an english version, I hope) to come out, so that I can actually understand the story. Know Albatross18? This is just that game on the PSP, with better controls (in my opinion), better graphics (the art was changed) and better story (there's a story mode).

There are still many more games on the PSP (all of them are Japanese games) I want. Those three are just the main ones. I think I'm going to ue my PSP more often now...

Have you ever heard of Hatsune Miku? She's a voice-synthetizing program, which became so popular that she's getting her own game on the PSP, made by SEGA (will blog about it later on). She's a voice used by the Vocaloid program made by Yamaha. And surprisingly, for a synthetized voice, she sings really well. She can only sing in Japanese, though. There are some English vocaloids, but they can't sing well. A few days ago, the third (after Hatsune Miku and Kagamine Rin and Len) vocaloid from Crypton was released, Megurine Luka. And dozens of songs of her are already uploaded on Nico Nico Douga and YouTube. She basically conquered the Weekly Vocaloid Ranking.

She's voiced by Asakawa Yuu, famous for voicing Rider in Fate/Stay Night and Sakaki in Azumanga Daioh. She have a "cool and husky" voice, is 20 years old, is 162cm tall and 45 kg in weight. Her favorite genre of music are Latin Jazz Pop and House Dance Electronica. She can sing from the note D3 to D5, and in 65 to 145 BPM. She looks like some character from a RPG game. Luka was originally planned to be released last month at December, but she was delayed until today due to "difficulties in making the voice library". Well, I won't blame Crypton since Luka is bilingual, she speaks and sings both English and Japanese. I must say, her voice is pretty good, although it kind of sounds similar to Meiko's voice. She sings well in English, too! As she's much older than other vocaloids, she's probably going to have a big sister/motherly image attached to her, somewhat like Meiko. Read more about her in my blog.

So I updated to the latest Windows Seven Beta Build 7000. I'm impressed. I love Windows Seven. And I've never said "love" to a Windows Operating System ever since Windows 98. Windows XP was good, but it wasn't outstanding. Windows Vista was bad enough to make me change my Operating System into Mac OS X Leopard. Currently, I'm triple-booting Windows XP, Windows Seven and Mac OS X Leopard on my MacBook, by the way. I installed this smoothly and without a hassle. It was quick, too, only about 1 and a half hour to install from Windows XP. And what comes next? I thought the hardware won't work until I install the BootCamp drivers from my Mac OS X Leopard disc, but to my surprise, everything (except for audio) works instantly, without a driver. I'm running an Apple product here, Microsoft's rival, and they provided the drivers to us. I then install BootCamp so that I can hear audio and use the Function keys. Oh, and as always, click on the image for high resolution pictures.

So here's my desktop. With Maple leaves (one of the default Wallpapers on Windows Seven).

I already love the new features. Compatibility isn't a problem, all applications that run on Windows Vista runs on Windows Seven. Only one application, Wanko to Kurasou, which wasn't compatible with Vista anyways, didn't work. Oh, and GameGuard (used by many online games) doesn't work too, so if you want to play online games, don't use this version of Windows until it's released. I love the Ribbon Interface on WordPad and Microsoft Paint, although I can't say the same for the new Windows Movie Maker. The new taskbar and Windows Media Center are awesome.

Here's Aero-peek, a feature that makes the other window (other than the one you're hovering in the taskbar) transparent. It's really useful.

In terms of performance, it's many more times better than Vista. On Dual-core machines, it's better than XP, but some people with multiple-core machines say that Windows XP is better, in terms of performance. Starting up Windows replaced that ugly Windows Vista loading (booting) screen with a nice and cool "Windows is Starting" logo, that is somewhat like the PS2 starting screen. Booting up only takes a few seconds for me (20ish seconds) compared to about 40 seconds on booting up Windows XP. Shutting down is also really quick.

Here's the hot-corners Aero-peek. Mac users should be familiar with hot-corners.

Windows Media Player 12 is great, no more freezing for me, and the interface is sleek. But now I mainly use Windows Media Center, and I love its interface, particularly when hearing Music, like in the picture below.

I love Klonoa soundtracks...

The new Taskbar is extremely useful. When you're copying a file in Windows Explorer, the taskbar shows you the progress. Speaking of which, it actually have a Windows Explorer icon (quick launch) now. No more clicking the Start button only to open My Documents anymore. Now that I think about it, it's kind of like the Dock...

Love the Tasks Pop-up.

All in all, it's an awesome Operating System. I'd probably buy it on day one. All applications (except a few) are already compatible with it anyways.

Last week was pretty much one of the worst weeks in my life. Floods, I have to do the SAT test, and there's an IOP (Individual Oral Presentation) at my school. So I don't have time to go to the internet, let alone playing games. Last Monday I managed to play some games, though, because of the Chinese New Year Holiday. Happy Chinese New Year for all those who celebrates it!

That's the current topic in my school's ITGS course. I have to make a report on one Distributed Computing project. Which did I choose? Of course, the folding@home on the PlayStation 3. My teacher was so impressed with my report (well, when I research something that have something to do with Video Games, I'm really passionate about it), so he asked me to bring a PlayStation 3 and demonstrate it at school. At that point I literally froze. A teacher asking me to bring a video gaming console to school? I guess I'll also bring Valkryia Chronicles to demonstrate it to my friends too... xD

So I played quite a lot of Visual Novels lately... I love them. They're usually where Anime came from, other than Manga. I played CLANNAD for 1,000 hours, completing it for the third time. Now I know every detail of the story, and got all CG, Music and Dialogue.I could do nothing more in the game, and I knew all about Ushio. I love CLANNAD for the fact that it's a clean Visual Novel (no H-scene at all) and a finished english translation is available. Of course, I could play the continuation, Tomoyo After ~It's a Wonderful Life~, but I'll pass since that game have a lot of H-scenes and I kind of hated Tomoyo. The story and character is another masterpiece by Key. Can't wait to play "Rewrite", Key's newest work. I just hope that it's quickly released. One thing I noticed that in all Key visual novel, there's a single season tied into it. Like in "Air", the theme is Summer and in CLANNAD, the theme is winter. Here's Ushio in the title, showing me that I finished literally everything in the game. Oh, and I also blogged about the anime a while ago, feel free to read it.

I also finished Beat Blades Haruka for the first time. Took me about 150 hours partly since the game is fully in Japanese so I had to learn some new words from the dictionary. And the game itself is pretty complex. Think of it like an RPG. But you gain stats from H-scenes (weird). Exploredungeons (it is pretty limited, with three choices of which way to go), battleenemies, raisesome stats, battlesomemorerandomenemies, and gain some experience and peace points. If you have enough peace points in the end of the game, you'll get the good ending, and vice versa. It's really a simple mini RPG. And of course normal VisualNovel elements are in the game, such as love points and response choices. Overall, it's a nice Visual Novel. I love it, but hated the over-exaggerated H-scenes, which made me skip them whenever one's starting. I guess that's AliceSoft for you. No pictures of the CG/Video mode since they're all NSFW. I love this game so much if it doesn't have any NSFW material in it.

And the last one was Fate/Stay Night. This visual novel is LONG. I played it for about 200 hours and I just finished the Fate ending. I still have Unlimited Blade Works and Heaven's Feel to play with. Anyways, I love Ilya. More than Saber. Which made me get the Bad Ending a lot of times, since my love points with Saber isn't enough. Sometimes I hate the love point system...Am still trying to get to the Unlimited Blade Works route, couldn't figure out the correct choices. Oh, and a finished english translation is also available for this game. I actually played this visual novel first before watching the anime, so some things were confusing to me at first.

I finished Wanko to Kurasou for the third time too, although it only took me a little less than 100 hours to do it. I blogged about this game a little bit earlier, and my favorite character is my current avatar! Any of you played any Visual Novel? Anything you could recommend? I love Visual Novels!

Do you know that anime? It was third season of the Aria anime, from Aria the Animation, to Aria the Natural, and now Aria the Origination. It was a pretty old anime, it finished airing at March 2008. I was looking for some music to listen to, while I stumbled upon a video in Nico Nico Douga showing the song スピラーレ (spirale), the opening theme of Aria the Origination. I saw it a few days ago too on the 2008 Anime DVD Ranking (it ranked on the top 5, if I remember correctly). It was sung by Yui Makino, by the way. So I decided to buy the single.

I love this song. It's so relaxing and it really fits the anime. It reminds me, I should probably continue watching Aria the Origination again... I set it on hold at episode 5 or so because I didn't have the time to continue watching it back then. Aria the Origination is a beautiful anime with a relaxing theme. Here's a synopsis of the anime.

"It is the year 2301. Man has terraformed Mars into a beautiful water planet, and has renamed it "Aqua". Built upon it is Neo-Venezia, an exact replica of old Venice, with beautiful waterways, palaces and plazas. Akari Mizunashi, a 15 year old girl arrives from Man-Home (formerly known as Earth) to become a gondolier trainee at a company called Aria Company. The company is lead by Alicia Florence, one of the three best gondoliers, also known as the three Water Fairies. Trough hard training, Akari aims to become a Prima herself. Many encounters and mysterious events are sure to follow on this planet of miracles."

I gave it a 10/10 rating. I love the anime, it really relieved my stress whenever I'm stressed, and it's so relaxing. I recommend this anime to everyone.

I'm going to include some of my personal life into this blog. Anyways, my life in the last 24 hours is chaotic. Here's why. At 10:40 PM I heard a big explosion. A gas depot a few kilometers away from my house exploded and a huge fire was started. At 1:00 PM a huge storm started. That didn't help in extinguishing the fire, though. At 2:00 AM on the following Monday (yes, I haven't slept, I couldn't sleep anyways), I notice the water level going up in the middle of the thunderstorm (felt like a tropical storm...) and I went to my dad's room. He noticed it too and starts packing up the electronics (MacBook, Wii, XBOX360, PSP, and those stuff). After that, my dad woke up my mom and she starts packing up my clothes. When we finished packing up, we go outside, only to found out that the water level is on par with my car's wheel. So we quickly get into the car and went to the main road. Surprisingly, the main road's covered with water too, so we headed to the bypass road, only to find that it's covered with water too. In the end, we decided to go to the tollroad (highway) and went to my cousin's house. All that in 3:00 AM. And I slept and woke up at 2:00 PM, skipping school with my dad's permission. After that I loaded my Tales of Symphonia: Ratatosk no Kishi save file and resumed my life as usual. I expected the flood to come here at early February, since that's what happened in the last 7 years (the flood is a yearly thing in here, happens every year, and gets worse every 5 years). Suddenly in the middle of January we were hit by a flood. So I guess next year we'll be hit by a flood in the middle of New Year's Day? The current flood was really unexpected. Anyways, that's enough ranting. At least I can still play my games.

I love PangYa. Played it on the Indonesian server before it shut down, and then on the Southeast Asian server until it got shut down again, and now on the US Albatross18 server. I wanted to play on the Japanese or Korean server but, they blocked IP addresses outside their region. Oh, and I also played it on the Wii. Anyways, was also thrilled when I saw this being released for the PSP, and I imported the Korean version. And even though it's in Korean, I can still enjoy it.

That was the title screen. As you may notice, the Artwork for the characters are changed to make them a bit more "lifelike". I actually like the new art than the much anime-inspired art in the previous game, so I have no complaints. And as I've mentioned, it's still in Korean. This game actually have a storyline and 19 characters, many of them are new and exclusive to this PSP version. After the ending of a character's part in a story, you'll get an ending CG. A beautiful one, especially since it's on the PSP. Here's a CG of the WizWiz course.

The game is set on the PangYa island, but Shining Sand, Ice Spa, Ice Cannon and Silvia Cannon isn't in this game. Ice Spa was my favorite course ever, so I hope they'd include it in this game. Maybe on the future as a downloadable content? I hope so.

Played this game for a while and I unlocked half of the characters. Will be released in Japan on April, and would pre-order the limited version. I really want to be able to understand the storyline, and I want the soundtrack that came with the limited version of the game (along with other bonuses such as a Kooh figure). The music on this game was re-arranged, by the way, and the Opening theme and video is simply awesome. Really, this is the best sport game on the PSP.